And for my next trick…

Invasion of the fittest.

A military biologist treks to an extra-terrestrial landing site, and discovers that one life form’s expansion means another life form’s annihilation.

ANNIHILATION is about nothing less than the dissolution of the human species. I love it already. An extra-terrestrial species insidiously “invades” our planet, not via rockets and lasers, but through DNA, mimicking and overrunning every carbon-based life form that comes in contact with its cellular Armageddon.

Lena (Natalie Portman) joins a secret military expedition after her MIA military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) unexpectedly returns from that same mission not quite himself; disoriented, spitting blood, eventually slipping into a coma.

With a cadre of female soldiers (including Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny and Gina Rodriguez), Lena warily enters the “Shimmer,” an expanding atmospheric anomaly rendered as a colorful special effect like oil on water – at its heart, a downed alien craft crash-landed in a lighthouse, that is warping reality to its own ends. Commanding officer Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) warned Lena that over scores of missions, nothing came back from the Shimmer, not drones, not animals, not people… Except Lena’s husband just did. Or did he?

(The Shimmer’s ravenous appetite begs the question: Did you try tether lines on the things you sent in? Did you try sending them in just a short way and then dragging them back out? And if you sent them deep into the Shimmer and they never returned, isn’t it the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Tethering. Try it sometime, Military.)

Shades of John Carpenter’s THE THING and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, ANNIHILATION is a Lovecraftian psychological thriller that asks us to do what most American movies stopped doing after social media was invented – think.

Movie is framed as a flashback, with Lena in a containment room being interrogated by someone in a hazmat suit (Benedict Wong), as she recalls snatches of her encounter with the Shimmer – how she was inside for months and thought it was days, not remembering eating, not understanding how all the members of her expedition are lost… Each of them, in various backstories, was a bundle of neuroses, so might have had a death wish for volunteering for this probable “suicide” mission (yes, but not if you use tethers!), yet movie is not about each soldier’s growth and redemption; rather, the gradual reveal of the Shimmer’s grand purpose is the compelling, thought-provoking hook. ANNIHILATION tells us coldly at the outset this is not about humans at all.

To entertain the troops, the skull-headed bear makes shadow puppets.

The five women slowly lose their minds. They wake after one night and discover they have actually been there three days, due to their remaining rations! After an attack by a mutated alligator, Lena discovers different species traits within one species; plants growing in the shape of humans; a bear with the call of a woman yelling in pain; found footage of Kane’s expedition, cutting into the belly of his fellow soldier and finding snake-like intestines slithering over one another!

Physicist Josie (Thompson) discovers that the Shimmer is “refracting everything” – light and radio signals as well as DNA, taking on the components and characteristics of everything Earth-based, transmogrifying them into extra-terrestrial versions of what the alien intelligence believes everything to be, from sunlight to cells.

From The Southern Reach Trilogy of novels (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) by Jeff VanderMeer (2014), writer-director Alex Garland (EX MACHINA) conjures an eeriness that pervades the mysterious journey. For every concept Garland omitted from the novels, he provides a visceral rankling of our senses with disturbing scenes coupled with truly alien sound design by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, muffled and occluded, stultifying what we believe to be our reality. ANNIHILATION is remarkably original in sights, sounds and concept.

“It’s not destroying. It’s making something new.” When humankind does it, it’s called creation; when something wreaks its creation on us, it’s called annihilation.

Even in this thought-provoking science fiction, there are the little distractions: tentpole actors – I’m thinking of Portman (in such magnificent shape here – side-boob and pearbottom!) being in the STAR WARS Prequel Trilogy, and now, Isaac in the Sequel Trilogy; I’m thinking of both Portman and Wong in the Marvel Cinematic Underpants; thinking of Isaac also in the X-MEN universe… Aren’t there any other actors??

Then there are those infuriating “explanation” scenes, where the listener should already know what the explainer is woman-splaining, yet they do it anyway for the sake of the audience: a military scientist explains to another how to gauge South via the sun. You didn’t learn this in boot camp?

And in an environment where people are losing their memories and compasses are haywire, should Lena really be turning down help to track a fellow soldier on her own? This only serves the plot later, so that the other soldiers can accuse her of killing the woman she was tracking.

And though Lena’s flashback affair might have worked for motivation in the novels, here it seems gratuitous, for titillation only, in side-boob and pearbottom (for which I am not complaining).

– – – – – S P O I L E R S – – – – –

ANNIHILATION attempts a revolutionary portrayal of an alien life form. Purely benign, it will be regarded as malign by humans as it terraforms and annihilates what we regard as “our” planet.

As the shimmering entity mirrors Lena’s movements, we feel like we’ve stepped into another, almost comical, movie – Is that the Silver Surfer? – until we realize the disturbing implications of this thought-less entity (i.e. this entity with no conscious thought). The Shimmer is blindly adapting to its environment, its cells much better attuned to malleability than Earth DNA (which mutates over generations), and “mutating” in real time. Dr. Ventress laments the Shimmer is “annihilating” Earth life forms at a cellular level, when in reality it is developing its own life forms to suit Earth’s environment. And Earth’s life – in Darwinian desperation – is losing the battle for survival of the fittest. We marvel at the being that molds itself like silver clay to Lena’s body shape, yet we are so used to extra-terrestrials consciously seeking to destroy that we must remind ourselves this extra-terrestrial has no rational thought and is rather forming innocuously like any conglomeration of cells might form to shape a fish or lizard – in this instance, a human. As the cells mimic the host, they also mimic the human host’s brain patterns, which are basically electrical impulses. While the soundtrack blares basso tones that sound like a woofer speaker disintegrating.

As Natalie Portman gazes at the plant-shaped humans, we cannot believe how amazingly perfect those pear shapes are…

The existential question drives us to insignificance: Are humans simply the sum of our memories (also posited in OBLIVION), or can we transfer our consciousness, which is merely electrical impulses, to other entities (also posited in TRANSCENDENCE and CHAPPIE)? If another life form can mimic our DNA and therefore our thoughts and memories so succinctly, can it be called… human?

What I love about ANNIHILATION is that it never trips up on that tired, narcissistic qualification that humans cannot be replaced by any other life form because they have ‘souls,’ or that humans are “warlike – but noble – so deserve to survive.” The final embrace by shiny-eyed Natalie and shiny-eyed Oscar means that there is yet hope that humans will be wiped out…

In the end, ANNIHILATION bows to the convention of ‘destroy the source – destroy its creations’ because in this modern society, a story that leaves alien structures on Earth spells sequel, and movie wants to powerfully say that no alien intelligence, however powerful, can successfully recreate Natalie Portman’s side-boob and pearbottom.

END

Eight is Enough to fill our hearts with dingus.

THE THING meets CAPTAIN RON. And all Snake Plissken breaks loose.

Wyoming. Post-Civil War. At a snowbound outpost, eight strangers must survive the stormy night. And each other.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino‘s THE HATEFUL EIGHT is a slow burn; a firecracker waiting to be ignited in a nunnery. Unlike many of his films, we are not bled with anxiety in the first scenes. It can be said this is Tarantino’s first linear plotline. Or is it?

MungaPoff

This eighth film by the master of mayhem is styled along the lines of the master of mystery, Agatha Christie’s AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (1945) and TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965), and, due to the snow and Kurt Russell, holds more than a little resemblance to John Carpenter’s THE THING (1982). Or does it?

Isolated strangers, hidden agendas, mysterious deaths. The Tarantino fan – and the casual Western buff or thriller buff – must wait a good way into the film to discover it is one big ulterior motive waiting to happen. Or is it?– Okay, that’s enough of that. Just asking contrary questions doesn’t create tension, y’know… Or does it?

Opening scene finds bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell, sporting a mustache that is more mungabush than handlebar) as he dashes through the snow in a stagecoach, headed for the town of Red Rock, racing a storm, with his cuffed bounty, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh in a primal, dangerous-funny role). Ruth aims to see her hang and collect his $10,000 reward. They are stopped by a stranger in the street sitting on a pile of dead bodies – Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), another bounty hunter who is begrudgingly allowed to share Ruth’s expensive coach. Soon they come upon yet another strandling in the snow, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who claims to be the new Sheriff of Red Rock, in transit to his new post, without a badge or official paperwork yet. John Ruth trusts no one – not while he’s chained to a $10K bounty that others might kill for – yet he lets Mannix aboard on the indisputable logic that “If you want to collect your bounty in Red Rock, I’m the one that’s gotta pay you!”

Sam Elliott’s mustache called Kurt’s mustache,
and told it to dial down to a 7.

Forced to stop at a way station called Minnie’s Haberdashery, to let the storm blow over, these four strangers encounter four more stranded strangers in transit: the hangman of Red Rock, Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), a cowpuncher writing his autobiography (Michael Madsen), a Confederate General looking for his son (Bruce Dern), and Bob the caretaker (Demian Bishir), who says he is taking care of the place while Minnie is on vacation.

Even at this point, there is still none of that characteristic Tarantino tension. And the dialogue is not up to par with Tarantino’s usual repartee that keeps us glued to our seats through Nothing Happening (foot massage from PULP FICTION, Superman’s idea of humanity from KILL BILL VOL 2, et al). The strangers are somehow all linked in tenuous ways, and though John Ruth blusters his way around the tavern, eking out everyone’s motivation on the pretense of knowing who his mustache is spending the night with (while getting everyone’s backstory exposited for screenplay purposes), we find ourselves almost anxiety-ridden that there IS no anxiety.

Then comes Chapter Four.

THE HATEFUL EIGHT is told in Six Chapters (starting with Last Stage to Red Rock), and in Chapter Four (Domergue’s Got a Secret), something dark starts to rise like a shadow in a corner. As introduction to this Chapter, we hear Tarantino himself in voiceover – like a storyteller – detailing a plot point that only one character sees (even we the audience did not see it). It’s strange, it breaks filmmaking rules, but we are home! Coming out of nowhere as it does, it disorients us – yet we suddenly feel that Tarantino paranoia embrace us like a lost lover…

Tarantino has become such a force in movies for contravening convention so fearlessly. Only to create new conventions that others adopt in their filmmaking vernacular. Or he uses techniques that have fallen out of favor, like his penchant for cartoonish titles showing character names or information; techniques that have become such staples in hip movies nowadays that a younger viewer might easily mistake Tarantino for copying his own copycats. So though we titter for the voiceover’s obvious invasiveness, it gives the movie Tarantino’s unique stamp. They’ll be copying this raw invasiveness soon enough…

Suddenly – like piano wire tightening around our throats – everything gets slanted, everyone becomes a suspect, everywhere is a big black dingus.

THE HATEFUL EIGHT is filled with all the tiny details that make a good film great. Firstly, it is shot “in glorious 70mm.” (Ultra Panavision widescreen filmstock that hardly exists in reality. Tarantino’s DP, Robert Richardson, tells us this is only the 11th feature made on Ultra Panavision.) It was Tarantino’s recurring descriptive in his script notes, and not so much a detail, as an overarching ethos. Tarantino wanted to isolate his cast and crew to ensconce them in 1800’s frontier survival mode. Even though only a few moments capture the breadth of the exterior snowbound vistas, we’re told the interior cabin shots are also out there. The indoors was in fact outdoors.

Details like hammering two boards on the front door to shut out the raging tempest. Why not just one board? Authenticity. The amount of time spent for characters to hammer two boards into the front door every time someone kicks it in to enter the cabin, is enough to get you drunk if you’re playing the drinking game.

Details like hat brims: Jackson’s character is in Bichir’s face, shouting at him. Their hat brims touch. But then Jackson moves into Bichir’s personal space – signified by their hat brims starting to overlap, as Jackson’s slides under Bichir’s and inches closer. Excellent.

Details like Jackson’s lascivious story describing what a freezing man did for a warm blanket, revolving around what he terms alternately his “big black pecker,” “big black johnson” and – wait for it! – his “warm black dingus.”

Details like the Lincoln Letter: A key element that opens doors for African-American bounty hunter Major Warren. Until Mannix smirks, “The nigger in the stable has a letter from Abraham Lincoln?!” the phrasing of which tells us why he must carry that letter.

Details like nigger: Yes, Tarantino’s characters have no compunction blurting his second favorite word. With Tim Roth putting British spin on it, “…my Nubian friend…” Activist groups get another chance to feel relevant as they twitter their faux-outrage…

And this is not a detail – but a coup: composer Ennio Morricone! Whereas Tarantino has used this giant’s soundtrack music in previous films, (KILL BILL, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, DJANGO UNCHAINED), at last he hires the man himself – 89-year-old master of Westernized Mexican music – Ennio Morricone!

THE HATEFUL EIGHT is not structured to convention. You will find no character that arcs or finds redemption. None do, and no one does. Like the best bucking of convention, the galloping story subsumes the subtexts. By Chapter Five: The Four Passengers, the stagecoach is running off the rails. And we pray to a non-existent god that when it ramps over a cliff, we can keep our crotches safe.

Strangely enough, though Jackson, Madsen and Roth are Tarantino veterans, though Leigh ravages the screen with her savagery, though Dern is an old seadog, though Kurt’s mustache is ten times the badger it was in TOMBSTONE, this movie belongs to – Walton Goggins!

Walton Goggins, perennial creepy-guy character actor (Steve Buscemi-adjacent), a Junior Bruce Dern – here sharing scenes with ACTUAL Bruce Dern, and blossoming as we watch him! He’s been co-star on series like JUSTIFIED and SONS OF ANARCHY, but never red meat like this primo role. Though one of the B-characters, he grabs the reins like an A-Lister and steals the show. He’s at first goofy, then steadfast, and comes out damn righteous. Tarantino had to cast someone who could emerge from amongst the stellar ensemble to shoulder the denouement, and after Goggins’s small, unimpressive turn in Tarantino’s DJANGO, it’s pleasantly surprising that he was chosen to carry this beast to its intriguing conclusion.

THE HATEFUL EIGHT is intelligent, well-paced, gory and mungabush. Enough to fill our hearts with dread. Or a big black dingus.

END

When Roommates Go Tribade.

A luscious woman is terrorized by a boxy woman. The boxy woman adopts the sexy woman’s hairdo, borrows her clothes and gives the sexy woman’s boyfriend a hummer. Terrifying, isn’t it? Really, guys, do any of you care?

But seriously, who wouldn’t stalk Bridget Fonda? In this psychological thriller, she’s the luscious Allie, the SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, stalked by boxy Hedy (Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was once carnally delicious – FLESH AND BLOOD, 1985 – but has never again attained that “I’ll take you, soldier!” sluttishness).

Square-jawed Allie has just broken up with her cheating boyfriend (Steven Weber) and needs a roommate to help with the high New York rent, so runs an ad, broadcasting her SWF status. Hedy moves in on the strength of her down-to-Earth compassion.

Then everything gets pear-shaped (and I’m not talking about Bridget’s bottom). And that’s before Allie’s boss (Stephen Tobolowsky) tries to rape her pear shapes…

Ladies, if there’s a lesson to be learned from this movie, it’s: Don’t Trust Men. Oh, and don’t trust women either. Matter of fact, the only trustworthy person in this movie is the gay guy (Peter Friedman).

It’s a pity Fonda stopped acting after 2002, because her penchant for going bottomless was much appreciated by the male populations who loved pear shapes.

END

The Family that frays together…

What do you get when you reunite two high maintenance sisters after years of not speaking to each other? Higher maintenance.

Margot (Nicole Kidman) and her son, Claude (Zane Pais) travel from Manhattan to Long Island, to attend the wedding of Margot’s sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to shiftless musician wannabe, Malcolm (Jack Black), whom Margot does not approve of.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, MARGOT AT THE WEDDING is one of those indie films where nothing actually happens, but everything gets complicated anyway, through small secrets and past deeds woven into the fabric of the characters’ lives before the camera started rolling.

We find that author Margot has visited Pauline for a number of reasons, none of which involve the joy of seeing Pauline wed – she runs from problems in her own marriage (to John Turturro) and harbors designs on a past lover (Ciarán Hinds) who lives nearby.

Grounded in reality, the camera does not shy away from these characters in their most intimate moments, and it is a pleasure to see the movie treating sex with such casualness, rather than with sanctity or prurience. The hotness of seeing Nicole Kidman masturbating is balanced quite egregiously with seeing Jack Black naked…

The backbiting and secret-sharing and illicit love affairs fly like daggers of snarkiness; Malcolm, a slave to his emotions, gets his Jack Black on and creates laughs from thin air in a character toned down for indie consumption; some crazy neighbors figure in some eerie confrontations; eventually the dysfunction reaches fever pitch and – like every indie movie about family dysfunction – ends like it’s in the middle of a senten

END